Contrary Polish: Gift Wrap and Anniversary Monster (custom)

Good morning everyone! Three posts in a row? This must be a new recent record for me 🙂 I told you all having the kids in school now would help me get back on track! *knocks on wood*

In keeping with this week’s trend of showing off giveaway polishes, today I bring you Contrary Polish!

Contrary Polish is one of my favorite indie brands. Since around fall I’ve been really drawn to non-glitter bomb polishes (with a few exceptions of course!), and Contrary Polish is one of the best at amazing shimmers. I own a good chunk of her creations (you can check my stash list, though it’s not up to date- I also have the new colors and a few more older ones), so if there’s any you’ve been wanting to see- let me know in the comments and I’ll try and post them next week if I have them!

A few months ago I contacted Carrie about creating a custom polish, and I LOVE what she came up with! We decided to name it ‘Anniversary Monster’ in celebration of my 1 year blogging anniversary (which was in June, but I’m slow) 🙂 A second bottle of Anniversary Monster will be a prize in my upcoming giveaway!

Along with Anniversary Monster, I decided to swatch Gift Wrap, which was created to celebrate Contrary Polish’s one year anniversary! It seems fitting 🙂

First up, I’ll show off Gift Wrap!

Gift Wrap is a beautiful dark purple polish filled with very noticeable blue green shimmer. Application was good, I used 2 coats plus topcoat for the photos. Gift Wrap dries to a semi-matte finish without topcoat- also pretty, but I prefer shiny 🙂

When I first bought this polish I thought it might look a bit of RBL Scrangie (one of my favorites), but in person it didn’t. The colors are a bit different, but the major difference is the shimmer. Gift Wrap’s is much more noticeable, and it’s also more of a scattered, larger particle shimmer rather than a smooth shimmer (does that make any sense? I can’t figure out a better way to describe it!). This alone makes it appear completely different. If you like that color combination you will adore Gift Wrap!

Agh, the sparkle. This polish was so gorgeous and stunning outside in the sun- though it was beautiful indoors as well!

And now for Anniversary Monster!

When Carrie asked what I would like for my polish, I just gave her a list of colors I loved and let her have free reign. I said that I love pink (of course!), grey, tiffany blue, green and purple- so whatever she thought would look great and use some of those colors would be awesome.

What I got was this beautiful blue-grey polish filled with bright pink shimmer. The base is almost green-leaning in some lights, and a bit blue in others. Definitely something unique, and very ‘me’, and it even seems to fit the ‘Anniversary Monster’ name perfectly!

Again the application was great- I used 2 coats and topcoat for these photos. Like Gift Wrap, Anniversary Monster dries to a bit of a satin finish without topcoat.

So what do you think? I love it! If you’d like to try and win a bottle, be sure to be watching my blog- I’m hoping to start the giveaway early next week!